The Best Elie Wiesel quotes

How can a human being be illegal? — Elie Wiesel

Except that a human being is both the public and the private. We are both, private and public in the same person. — Elie Wiesel

Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the happiness and humanity of the human being. — Elie Wiesel

Tibet’s a tragedy. It’s an insult to human decency. — Elie Wiesel

Naturally, the human being wants to forget pain. — Elie Wiesel

The most important question a human being has to face… What is it? The question, Why are we here? — Elie Wiesel

Every single human being is a unique human being. And, therefore, it’s so criminal to do something to that human being, because he or she represents humanity. — Elie Wiesel

In those dark times, one rose to the very heights of humanity by simply remaining human. — Elie Wiesel

Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy; indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile. — Elie Wiesel

Whatever we thought was certain is no longer certain, and therefore in science probably certain things must be correct, but in human behaviour I am not so sure. — Elie Wiesel

I remember, May 1944: I was 15–and–a–half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction. — Elie Wiesel

I think that human beings are capable of the worst things possible. — Elie Wiesel

I think that human beings are capable of the worst things possible and they show that there were times, and there probably are times, that it is human to be inhuman. — Elie Wiesel

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. — Elie Wiesel

In Talmudic literature, certainly in the beginning, he was like a human being–except he was a serpent. But he was talking and walking and probably dreaming. — Elie Wiesel

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. — Elie Wiesel

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. — Elie Wiesel

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems. — Elie Wiesel

The more we know, the more pain we have. But because we are human beings, this must be. Otherwise we become objects rather than subjects. — Elie Wiesel

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. — Elie Wiesel

Love is worth as much as prayer. Sometimes more. — Elie Wiesel

Warmed–over loves and soups are generally not recommended. — Elie Wiesel

For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship. — Elie Wiesel

In the word question, there is a beautiful word–quest. I love that word. — Elie Wiesel

I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake. — Elie Wiesel

Love is this and love is that; man is born to love; he is only alive when he is in the presence of a woman he loves or should love. — Elie Wiesel

We didn’t really differ [with Frank Moore Cross] because we have the same love of the text. We share that love. — Elie Wiesel

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. — Elie Wiesel

Love makes everything complicated. — Elie Wiesel

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. — Elie Wiesel

Personally, as a student who loves words, who loves texts, I am concerned with finding something in the text from within. — Elie Wiesel

I do not believe in collective guilt. — Elie Wiesel

I believe in God–in spite of God! I believe in Mankind–in spite of Mankind! I believe in the Future–in spite of the Past! — Elie Wiesel

I don’t belIeve In accIdents. there are only encounters In hIstory. there are no accIdents. — Elie Wiesel

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share. — Elie Wiesel

I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it’s a story. — Elie Wiesel

I’ll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. — Elie Wiesel

I don’t believe in collective guilt. The children of killers are not killers, but children. — Elie Wiesel

I belong to a traumatized generation that often felt abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind. And yet, I believe that one must not estrange oneself from either God or man. — Elie Wiesel

I believe a human being–if he or she wants to remain human, then he or she must do something with what we have seen, endured, witnessed. — Elie Wiesel

I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . . — Elie Wiesel

I speak from experience that even in darkness, it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. There it is: I still believe in man in spite of man. — Elie Wiesel

Before CONCLUDING this introduction, I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both. — Elie Wiesel

In Jewish history there are no coincidences. — Elie Wiesel

If we want to know history, I would think there would be every reason to. — Elie Wiesel

The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history. — Elie Wiesel

The Holocaust is the most documented tragedy in recorded history. And therefore, later on, if there will be a later on, anyone wishing to know will know where to go for knowledge. — Elie Wiesel

Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non–historical elements. It’s very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there’s not much reason to. — Elie Wiesel

We’re both [with Elie Wiesel] a long way from the position of the so–called Biblical minimalists. Some of them see no history in the Bible until Josiah. — Elie Wiesel

It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition. — Elie Wiesel

Shirat ha–Yam ] is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, pieces of Biblical literature that we possess. It is much closer to history than later traditions of the Exodus. — Elie Wiesel

It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed. — Elie Wiesel

Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don’t know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves. — Elie Wiesel

As you know, I describe Shirat ha–Yam as part of an epic story that has qualities of history and which also has qualities of the mythological, of an epic. — Elie Wiesel

Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history. — Elie Wiesel

I think so. 9/11 has been a turning point in American history, there’s no doubt about that. — Elie Wiesel

My anger rises up within faith and not outside it. — Elie Wiesel

His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: ‘I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people. — Elie Wiesel

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason. — Elie Wiesel

In the beginning there was faith–which is childish; trust–which is vain; and illusion–which is dangerous. — Elie Wiesel

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him. — Elie Wiesel

The opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. — Elie Wiesel

For me democracy is the only way of life. The opposite is dictatorship or anarchy. — Elie Wiesel

Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately. — Elie Wiesel

If the only prayer you say throughout your life is ‘Thank You,’ then that will be enough. — Elie Wiesel

Did everything I could in my life to be immune to hatred, because hatred is a cancer. — Elie Wiesel

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world. — Elie Wiesel

I have to be self–conscious of what I’m trying to do with my life. — Elie Wiesel

I learned that man lives differently, depending on whether he is in a horizontal or vertical position. — Elie Wiesel

Look, whatever you do in life, remember, think higher and feel deeper. It cannot be bad if you do that. — Elie Wiesel

Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins. — Elie Wiesel

My faith is a wounded faith, but it’s not without faith. My life is not without faith. — Elie Wiesel

Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death. — Elie Wiesel

First we must understand that there can be no life without risk–and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks. — Elie Wiesel

It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself. — Elie Wiesel

Therefore, all my adult life, since I began my life as an author, or as a teacher, I always try to listen to the victim. — Elie Wiesel

Life is not a fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it. — Elie Wiesel

That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life–that is what is abnormal. — Elie Wiesel

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life. — Elie Wiesel

My teachers [ had the most impact in my life]. Of course, my father and grandfather, but after my family, my teachers. — Elie Wiesel

I’ve given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance. — Elie Wiesel

It’s clear to me that one can’t be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non–religious, Zionist or non–Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic–all these will not exist without Israel. — Elie Wiesel

The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish. — Elie Wiesel

The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity. — Elie Wiesel

The Jewish tradition of learning–is learning. Adam chose knowledge instead of immortality. — Elie Wiesel

In my little town, Sighet, which is in Romania, Hungary–Romania, but a real shtetl, a little [Jewish] village–and we began with the Chumash [Pentateuch], probably at age four. — Elie Wiesel

I make a difference between genocide and Holocaust. Holocaust was mainly Jewish, that was the only people, to the last Jew, sentenced to die for one reason, for being Jewish, that’s all. — Elie Wiesel

In Jewish tradition the Talmud is said to have been given on Sinai. — Elie Wiesel

I come from a tradition–from the Jewish tradition, which believes in words, in language, in communication. — Elie Wiesel

I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table. — Elie Wiesel

What would the future of man be if it were devoid of memory? — Elie Wiesel

Memory is the keyword which combines past with present, past and future. — Elie Wiesel

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future. — Elie Wiesel

I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory. — Elie Wiesel

That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it. — Elie Wiesel

What do all my books have in common? A commitment to memory. — Elie Wiesel

For nearly 3,500 years Exodus has left such an imprint on people’s memories that I cannot imagine it had been invented just as a legend or a tale. — Elie Wiesel

I have tried to keep memory alive… I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. — Elie Wiesel

For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences. — Elie Wiesel

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories — Elie Wiesel

If there is a single theme that dominates all my writings, all my obsessions, it is that of memory–because I fear forgetfulness as much as hatred and death. — Elie Wiesel

Indifference always helps the aggressor, never his victims. And what is memory if not a noble and necessary response to and against indifference? — Elie Wiesel